Lessons in Patience from an Eco-Octogenarian

K.S. Sivaprasad. Photo credit: David Ferris

Last month I sat down with K.S. Sivaprasad, an Indian engineer and entrepreneur, to hear about his plans to bring a waste-to-energy factory to India. I learned that this sprightly 80-year-old had been at this effort for quite some time. Forty years, to be exact.

The interview inspired a story I wrote for yesterday’s New York Times entitled “Why India’s Waste-to-Energy Industry Won’t Catch Fire.” Sivaprasad’s tortoise-like race to design and build a new kind of factory is interesting. But the story of why it is so hard to get such a plant built in India is the story that needed to be told.

I expect to write again about India’s efforts to cope with its waste and energy problems, so keep an eye out for another report, most likely in a matter of weeks rather than decades.